Low-THz Vibrations of Biological Membranes

A growing body of work has linked key biological activities to the mechanical properties of cellular membranes, and as a means of identification. Here, we present a computational approach to simulate and compare the vibrational spectra in the low-THz region for mammalian and bacterial membranes, investigating the effect of membrane asymmetry and composition, as well as the conserved frequencies of a specific cell. We find that asymmetry does not impact the vibrational spectra, and the impact of sterols depends on the mobility of the components of the membrane. We demonstrate that vibrational spectra can be used to distinguish between membranes and, therefore, could be used in identification of different organisms. The method presented, here, can be immediately extended to other biological structures (e.g., amyloid fibers, polysaccharides, and protein-ligand structures) in order to fingerprint and understand vibrations of numerous biologically-relevant nanoscale structures.

Automated summary

A study has found a link between the mechanical properties of cellular membranes and key biological activities, which can be used for identification. The study used computational methods to simulate and compare vibrational spectra in the low-THz region for mammalian and bacterial membranes, investigating the impact of membrane asymmetry and composition, as well as conserved frequencies of specific cells. The results showed that asymmetry does not affect the vibrational spectra, and the impact of sterols depends on the mobility of membrane components. The study suggests that vibrational spectra can be used to distinguish between membranes and could be used for identifying different organisms. The method can also be applied to analyze vibrations of various biologically-relevant nanoscale structures, such as amyloid fibers, polysaccharides, and protein-ligand structures.